Winter Stars
by YeahWellImTheLordOfTime
Summary: The Doctor, Amy and Rory land on Halo, and discover the natives have been going missing. With the help of their new friend they must find out who is behind the disappearences.
1. Chapter 1

Anda Dane sat in the snow, worrying "Where _is_ Thresh?" she thought, he had promised to meet her here at least 30 tregs ago! But Thresh was never late! It was a stupid idea to come out here by herself; they had all been warned that it was dangerous to go out of the village boundaries in a group smaller than three. Maybe the reason Thresh hadn't turned up was because he had been taken like the others! Or at least Anda assumed they had all been taken, everyone else used the word "disappeared" but it was too much of a coincidence for ten people to go missing in the space of a month! Anda sighed, stood up and was turning to head home when an unnatural rushing, grating sound filled the air. Her tail swished from side to side and her eyes grew even wider than normal as a blue box materialised in front of her.

Amy Pond walked down the stairs to the TARDIS control room, where the Doctor, an eleven hundred odd year old Time Lord, and her husband Rory Williams were rushing around the console, pushing buttons and flicking leavers. "Pull the Wibbly Leaver!" the Doctor shouted at Rory

"Errrm which one's that again?" Rory cried back

"The one with the long silver bit on!"

"Aah yes, got it!"

The TARDIS gave a sudden lurch and then settled; Amy grabbed the handrail and shouted down at the two men "You let Rory fly the TARDIS, why can't I have some lessons?"

"Because," the Doctor retorted "Rory told me what happened when he let you drive his car!"

"It was only a few scratches!"

"Errrm no it wasn't," Rory called back "I had to get a brand new car, remember?"

"Yes, well…where have we landed anyway?" Amy said, changing the subject. The Doctor stared at them both with a boyish grin on his face "Let's take a look shall we?" he said, as he ran to the other side of the console and switched on the scanner. The first thing Amy noticed was that the planet outside was totally and utterly covered in bright, white snow. The second thing she noticed, was the fact that there was an alien staring straight at them. She had large, dark, round eyes, rough white skin, and, rather than hair she had three thick head tails, two came over her shoulders on either side and the third ran the length of her back, all three were tipped in red (Or at least Amy assumed they were as she couldn't see the tip of the one that ran down the alien's back). Also the alien had only four digits on each hand and a tail that burst from the lower part of her back. Amy was surprised when she saw the alien's clothes; she would have thought that with the planet being snow covered the people here would be wearing thick fluffy coats, but this young looking female was wearing only a thin green top, tight blue trousers (which extended up the tail) and a thick brown belt around her torso. She also had a hunting knife strapped to the belt on her hip, and had a thin, woven bracelet wrapped around her wrist.

"Sooo," Rory said "can you tell from the alien-standing-outside-and-staring-directly-at-us what planet we are on?"

"Well…. I'd suggest we're on Halo." The Doctor answered "Want to go say hello?"

Anda stared at the box for, what felt like, ages (but was really only one Earth minute), until the door of the blue box opened and out stepped a rather young, wild looking man with a very prominent chin! But something wasn't right with him, he had no tails of any kind and there were too many fingers on both hands! Anda stared. And then two more young people stepped out of the box, a male and a female, both of them had the same things wrong with them the man had, their skin was too smooth, too pink.

"Hello!" cried the man at the front "I'm the Doctor; this is Amy and Rory. Lovely planet by the way, very cold!"

"Hi," responded Anda, she felt woozy and she knew she was going to faint.

"What year is this?" the stranger asked.

"3456" Anda told him.

"Aaah" said the Doctor and turned to his friends "this planet has never seen an alien race before, they live in a solar system with very little life,"

That did it. Anda began to fall backwards, "Doctor" shouted the young man behind him, he raced forwards to catch her just as she blacked out.


	2. Chapter 2

The pale alien groaned, "I think she's coming round," Rory told Amy, his voice muffled through the large fluffy hood over his head. Amy giggled at the massive coat he had found in the TARDIS wardrobe, "But then again," she thought "I probably look just as silly!" She glanced down at the big fur coat she was sporting, it looked quite good on her, she thought, but the others may have a different opinion. The Doctor came over to them and crouched down next to Rory. _He_ wasn't wearing a coat and he wasn't even shivering! Amy shook her head and looked down as the alien opened her eyes. The first thing she said was to Rory "Aren't you warm?" and Amy burst out laughing.

"Errrm, no" Rory replied.

"Of course," the alien smiled "you're aliens!"

"Well to us you're the alien," Amy told her.

"Wow!" said the alien "I'm Anda by the way"

"Pleased to meet you," Amy, Rory and the Doctor said in unison and Anda giggled, but then her expression changed to one sullen and hostile "Hang on," she said "you're not behind the disappearances are you?" The Doctor was there in a flash, "What disappearances?" he asked her, and Anda breathed a sigh of relief, these people evidently knew nothing about all this. "Ten people have gone missing in the last month," she said. The Doctor pondered this for a moment "Right," he said "one Halo month is approximately 30 Halo days and one Halo day is approximately 26 Earth hours. Oh and one Halo year is 13 Halo months."

He paused for a moment and then said "Anda I think we need to visit your settlement." Anda nodded "follow me," she said.

Rory and Amy exchanged looks; before they set off into the wilderness, after the Doctor and Anda. Amy turned to look back at the TARDIS one more time, and noticed that they had landed beside a dark, snowy forest; she turned her head slightly, and was sure she saw some movement out the corner of her eye, but she shook her head and set off after the others.

As Amy walked away, two dark figures concealed in the trees turned to each other. "The tallest male seems clever, we need him," said the first in a gruff voice.

"And the orange one would make a good hostage," the other added.

"Better add the Skariib into that, just to make sure,"

"What about the other human looking one?"

"Leave him, he seems to only know about medication and we already have plenty of that kind. Also he would just be extra to guard if we took him, we can't spare the men."

And with that the two silhouettes moved away into the darkness.

"So..." Rory moved forwards to speak with Anda "How old are you exactly?"

"14," she answered. Rory nodded, and then thought how pointless this question was, he was on an alien planet, with aliens on it. The years were different (Rory would do the maths later on) and these aliens might age totally differently too. Also, the TARDIS translation thingy might change the amount of years that he heard coming out of Anda's mouth, so that it meant more to him, or it might translate literally! "Don't worry about that now." Rory muttered to himself.

"Hey," Anda said catching his attention "can you do any special things, your species? In fact what species are you? I'm a skariib if that's any help to you."

"Well I'm human," replied Rory "and, no, we can't really do anything special. What about you?"

Anda thought about this for a moment and then asked "Can you make fire?"

"Errm…no" replied Rory. Anda looked at him and, smiling, said "do you have a something that'll burn?" Amy bounced over to them like a kangaroo in a miniskirt and produced a box of matches from her pocket "I do," she said. The pale alien wrapped her fingers round the box and slid it open (they evidently had match style boxes on this planet, thought Amy) and took out a match, she held the thin stick of wood in her left hand, held it close to her right, and clicked together the skariib equivalent of a middle finger, and her thumb. The match lit. Amy and Rory stared and then both started talking at once "How did you do that?" Amy asked.

"Well," came the Doctor's voice from behind Amy's shoulder "the skariib have extremely rough, tough skin so when they snap their fingers together there's enough friction to generate a spark. Also their skin is really tough so they are practically immune to fire. If you engulfed one of the skariib in flames they would probably escape with minor burns, it's the smoke they have to worry most about."

"Correct," agreed Anda "how do you know so much about us?" The Doctor simply tapped his nose knowingly, and smiled at her.

As the travellers continued into the vast white desert they began to see obvious signs of life; at first it was only a footprint here and a snapped twig there, but eventually the ground was covered with the imprints of skariib footwear. As they rounded the brow of the hill they were climbing, a small cluster of houses loomed out of the light snow that was beginning to fall.

"Put your hoods up," warned Anda "I don't think it would be a good idea for everyone to see you straight away, so keep your heads down." She turned to the Doctor who had no coat and therefore no hood to hide under. "Here," she said, reaching into a small pouch at her hip "this should help." She had produced a small, black, fairly thin, compact coat. The Doctor pulled it over his head, the hood was a weird shape, and the back had a saggy section, as this was a coat made to fit three thick head tails inside. They stepped into the village.


	3. Chapter 3

Banta strode through the ship like a hunter, walking towards her kill. She wasn't happy. They had landed on the side of this stinking world with little technology, so the battle vessel was never going to be fixed! And it was so cold! She collared a passing lower and growled at him, that if he didn't find a decent technician soon he would pay dearly for it later. He quivered in fear, nodded like a frightened cattle and hurried hastily off down the bitter corridor. Banta felt better. She enjoyed scaring the other Dosh pirates, it was one of her only pleasures in life, she also quite enjoyed the fact that the lower would search for ages but never find anything, and that his searching would be pointless as she couldn't tell one lower from another, so she would never be able to find him and punish him. She smiled.

"Turn left," instructed Anda "Then go into the second house on the right." Amy, who was leading the way, entered the house, followed by Rory, the Doctor and, finally, Anda. Amy studied the house. It was little more than a big hut and made of some strange alien material. She asked the Doctor what the material was, he told her that it was found on most of the "extreme" planets (planets that were extremely cold in the winter and extremely hot in the summer) and worked by staying warm when it's cold and cool when it's hot. "Very sophisticated technology, but the surprising thing is it's totally natural!" the Doctor raised his eyebrows at her, waiting for a surprised reaction from Amy. But she just smiled and shrugged, it was all so normal to her now. Anda had moved out of the room while they were talking, and Rory told them that she had gone to get her mother. "Is that a good idea?" asked Amy, but Rory assured her that it would all be fine "she said that her mother would be just as welcoming as she was, I guess it must be hereditary."

"Well," said the Doctor "the skariib are naturally welcoming to visitors, there have been almost no wars whatsoever on this planet for the last 3000 years, Not all of them are really nice, only the bare minimum are meaner than the rest, but they're much better than you humans." He smiled to himself, "and yet I still love you!" Amy punched his arm playfully, "Oi," she said "you can't go around dissing us all the time then trying to make up for it you know!" As she finished the sentence the door at the other end of the room, which led to the rest of the house, opened to reveal Anda, and, just behind her, a slightly taller, greyer skariib, who stared at the three visitors with a look of awe. "Oh, Anda" she said and grabbed the arm of her only daughter before slowly lowering herself gently into the nearest chair. Anda walked slowly towards the Doctor, Amy and Rory, she introduced each of them in turn before turning back to her mother. "So," she said "can they stay with us for a while. They can help with finding the missing people."

"Of course they can Anda, dear," her mother replied "but we really should tell the elder. He is in charge after all." Anda began to shake her head furiously at this suggestion "Not him, I preferred it when his brother was in charge, he was kind, but Hunt is not the sort of man to lead our village. I don't think he would see just how nice these people are. He would have them locked up!"

"I fear you are correct dear" Anda's mother sighed "Anda, your cousin, Milli went missing today; Auntie Kat and Uncle Joe are frantic!" Anda looked saddened by the news, but simply sighed and said "I think Thresh has gone too. What's happening here?" her mother turned her sad eyes back to her guests, "Oh, but we haven't offered our visitors a cup of granca yet! By the way my name is Lana, I'm the local tailor and I'm also a member of the council."

"Mum's named after a flower that grows here on Halo; you can see one over there on the table." Anda informed them. Amy, Rory and the Doctor turned their heads to look at the plant, Rory noticed that it looked like a rose, but was striped purple and blue. The Doctor smiled sadly and then turned to the two skariib across the room; "Now then," he said "what about that nice hot cup of granca?" he looked at Amy and Rory "It's really very nice you know."

As Anda's mother bustled around making mugs of hot liquid the other four sat at the table in the middle of the room. "So," said Amy, "do you have any pets or anything on this planet?"

"Oh yes," Anda replied "I have a mondo called Ariana,"

"Right," said Amy "and a mondo is…"

"It's basically a rabbit;" jutted in the Doctor "except it has three ears and changes the colour of its coat to adjust to the time of year"

"Cool," said Rory. He was about to continue the conversation, but before any sound could come out of his mouth, Lana set down 4 mugs of steaming hot granca down on the table with a clunk.

"Thanks," said Rory, though in reality he was rather sceptical about what it would taste like. Amy wrapped her hands around her mug and looked about the kitchen; there was evidently basic technology on this planet for she saw that there was a stove and what seemed to be a washing machine crammed in to the small room. She also saw a small box with a grill (she assumed that was a radio) and another box with a door on it which looked a bit like a microwave. As she turned her focus back to the table in the middle of the room she noticed that the Doctor and Anda had almost finished _their_ mugs of granca!

She took a sniff at her mug and immediately wanted to try some, it smelled sweet, but not overpoweringly so; it reminded her of cold winter days where she and Rory would snuggle up together in front of a roaring fire, and sip either hot chocolate or tea while toasting marshmallows and watching movies.

She was just bringing the mug to her lips and was about to take a sip when suddenly two large skariib clad mainly in black and holding basic pistols, burst into the cottage! Everyone sat at the table leapt to their feet. Anda's mother looked shocked and began to speak calmly to the intruders "You have no right to be here," she said "I shall be taking this matter to.." but before she could say another word she was knocked to the ground by a large tree trunk of an arm. "Shut it, lady," said the first attacker, as the second began to advance on the Doctor, Amy and Rory.

"Mum!" Anda screamed, as she ran to help her mother.

"Now," snarled one of the advancing skariib "I'm afraid you're going to have to come with us,"

"Ah," said the Doctor "there are 5 very good reasons why we shouldn't do that, 1…" but he had already been grabbed by the shoulders and thrust towards the door. "No!" shouted Anda, and she threw herself at the wall of black and grabbed on to his belt, but she was simply brushed away with ease.

Amy and Rory were now in a similar situation to the Doctor, Rory's right arm and Amy's left were both in grips of iron. It was then that Amy realised that she was still holding her mug of granca. She turned and threw the contents over her captor, scalding him and causing him to release his grip on her arm, though he still held tight to her husband. She decided to run. If she could evade capture for long enough, maybe she could come up with a plan to rescue the Doctor and Rory. She ran out of the door and over the threshold; straight into the arms of a third skariib.


End file.
